Having a fear of making mistakes and a fear of blame. These two are tied together because the only reason we are actually afraid of making mistakes is that we are afraid of being thought of as a person who makes mistakes, right, and that is blame, also. Do you know anyone on the whole planet who has never made a mistake? It is helpful to know that by definition within Buddhism, even enlightened people can make a mistake. Even if I was perfectly enlightened, I might get up when I am finished here and leave the hall, and leave the taping machine here, or leave my watch here. I might leave the hall and then realize that I had forgotten something and go back to get it. An enlightened person by definition can make mistakes like these, but never a mistake connected with a negative intention. This is where it is a little different, we are not causing problems for other people by doing things with a negative intention.
Most of the mistakes that people make in their life are not intentional, that is why we use the word mistake. You walk out the door too fast and you bump into someone. In normal life we say, sorry. We made a mistake, because we walked out too fast. We didn't mean to knock the other person down. Someone else walks out the door, sees somebody standing there and thumps them and knocks them down. That is totally different, that is not a mistake. When we make a mistake, it is not an intentional thing, we didn't intend to do it. But even though we didn't intend to do it, we do make mistakes.
An important thing that we want to work with is blaming ourselves for a mistake. We can say to ourselves, "Oh, I wasn't very mindful", that's fine, but do we need to put blame on top? We can acknowledge, "Oh, I was forgetful at that time." But do we need to put blame on top? When we talk about Moral Shame, Moral Shame relates to doing something that was unwise, even when we knew that it was unwise. But even with Moral Shame we don't need to blame ourselves for being unwise, because who was it really that made the mistake, wasn't it the person we were in the past? This again ties in with the understanding that we are not who we were before.
How many of us learned about five finger discounts when we were kids? Maybe all of us, maybe most of us. I don't know if you know the expression "five finger discount". Basically this means that you use your five fingers to get a discount in the stores. It is another way of talking about stealing. Ok. Who taught us how to steal? Normally our older friends, our older cousins, older brother, you name it, we were taught how to do this and later we discovered that it was a wrong thing to do, that it was basically a mistake. But as a kid, you didn't know any better. You thought the store was a rich place, they had plenty. Why can't I have some. So years later and especially as meditators we sit down and start to open to these memories; when we were a kid and did this or even when we were a teenager we did that or even as a young adult we did that and even yesterday we did. And we start to open to these memories, but the person who did these things is not the person we are today. You have been taught to have Compassion and Lovingkindness for that person you were, who made that mistake, who was not very wise, who was ignorant of many things. To have compassion for the person you were when you were a young child, a teenager, or even yesterday.
We don't have to be afraid of blame. We made a mistake in the past, but we are a different person today, we try do better. People will blame us whether we do something good or not. This is an important thing to realize, if you are worrying about people blaming you. A lot of people blame you even when you are a good person. I get blamed by my family, a lot of people don't like me because I'm religious, I am a good person and none of my family is religious. So they look at me in the sense of being someone who should be blamed because I am not normal. I don't drink alcohol, I don't take drugs, I don't do many things that many people do, so I get blamed even though I'm a good person. So you are going to get blame no matter what.
Now when you think of being blamed by others, does this blame change your Kamma? Let's think about it like this: you do something very good and somebody blames you. Does that change the good Kamma you made? No, it doesn't. You did something very bad and somebody blames you. Does that change the Kamma you have made? No, it doesn't. Because bad is bad and good is good. Whether people blame you or whether they praise you won't really matter. Now think of this another way. Consider you did something bad and somebody blames you. You accept the blame and use it to try to inspire you to behave better in the future, and that is fine. Now consider that you do something good and somebody blames you. And you get angry at them for blaming you for doing something good. Does that change your good Kamma? Well it adds anger to it and therefore you've just added some bad Kamma on top of your good Kamma.
So it doesn't actually matter whether people blame you or whether you did something good or not, people blaming you is a separate issue, it doesn't change your Kamma. This is very helpful to think about, because then we can let go of being afraid of people's blame then if we have done something wrong and they blame us, we can thank them for it. We don't have to be afraid of that sort of blame, because we know we did something wrong, it is just natural. When we do something right and people blame us, we don't have to be afraid either, because they are making a mistake. Let us have compassion for them, because they are making a mistake. Nobody's blame will change your Kamma. It is a very important thing to think of, it will help you to let go of the fear of blame.